The invention concerns a treatment chamber for the treatment of histological samples with treatment agents, wherein the treatment chamber has a housing with a supply and discharge for treatment agents, a rotatable holding means for receiving the samples, and a closable access opening on the front side.
Devices comprising such treatment chambers are provided for the treatment of histological samples for microscopic examinations wherein the samples to be examined are subjected to a series of sequential processing steps, such as e.g. fixation, e.g. in an aqueous formaldehyde solution, dehydration, clearing and infiltration with paraffin or another suitable wax. For dehydration, the fixed samples are treated with alcohol reagents with gradually increasing concentration. For clearing, the dehydrated samples are treated once or several times with a clearing agent, e.g. xylol. The latter is an intermediate medium, which removes alcohol and subsequently introduces paraffin, since direct replacement of alcohol by paraffin is not possible. The clearing also improves the contrast. For infiltration with paraffin (or another wax), the dehydrated and cleared samples are also immersed several times into molten paraffin or another molten wax. Only then is the histological sample suitable for processing with a microtome. Thin sections are thereby produced which can be investigated under a microscope.
A treatment chamber of the above-mentioned type is disclosed in RU 99 12 63 11 A1 (Abstract, claim 13). To ensure that such a treatment chamber can also be opened without discharging treatment agent—which may be the current charge or residual amounts—this document suggests designing the treatment chamber to be pivotable such that the door opens from above. This solution requires substantial technical effort and accessibility of the treatment chamber from above is not optimal.
It is therefore the underlying purpose of the present invention to design a treatment chamber such that it can be easily accessed and has a simple construction without the danger of leaking treatment agent.